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Wednesday, January 28, 2009

How to fight Redundancies, Socialist Style!

Redundancy is a shocking experience.It disrupts your plans and hopes for your future.

Your company is also conveying a message: We do not care about you– profit is all that counts. Of course, they don’t put it as bluntly as this.Your CEO or manager will probably appear on the media andtalk about how sad they are but it had to be done for ‘competitiveness’.But they mean: workers are worth nothing, profit is all that counts.

Global society is experiencing a 1930s style crash and we can no longer accept this.This is the 21st century and all of us have a Right to Work.It is time to assert that people and our lives are more importantthan a company’s ‘bottom line’If you are facing redundancy,socialists advise you to take the following steps:

❶ Call a meeting of your workmates to discuss the situation.Elect people to represent you, either by endorsing your existingdelegates or electing new representatives. Make sure that themeeting is conducted properly by asking people to vote for what theywant.

❷ The first thing you need to decide is whether you want tooppose the redundancies or accept voluntary redundancies.Your union officials will almost invariably urge you to acceptvoluntary redundancies. Socialists, however, urge you toconsider resistance: There is very little work out there and you need awage packet now.

❸ Do some research on your company. Find out the following items:

■ Are they making a profit? If they are suffering a temporary loss,what sort of profits did they make in recent years? How much do theypay their CEO?■ How much did your company get in state grants? Have they beenpaying proper taxes in this country?■ Are they re-locating or closing down in order to benefit fromcheap labour? Or are they trying to intensify work for the remainingstaff.

❹ Organise an occupation of your workplace to resistredundancy. It is the only message that profitaddicts understand. Remember: Youhave two great levers that help you.■ First, the company will want to get hold of the machines, officespace or factory space to sell off or use elsewhere. You should usethese as a bargaining lever to secure concessions.■ Second, as governments have been bailing out banks, the obviousquestion is: why can’t they bail out redundant workers?

❺ You should use the occupation as a base tolaunch a major campaign to demand that the government protectyour right to work. Tell them to recover any grantsgiven to a company that has treated its workers like disposable productsand to use that money to fund alternative employment.Demand that the government either get you all places oncommunity employment schemes on Pay Related Benefit or that they takethe company into public ownership to guarantee jobs.

❻ Resistance will bring you some results – acceptancewill give you nothing. Some might argue that this is very ‘radical’. Butwe are living in changed times. When a US President likeBarack Obama promises that the US state will help fund the creation of3 million jobs, you know ‘the times they are a changing’.We need real, radical change here and that will come through‘people power’ – not taskforces, committees and crocodile tears.

If you want any further advice on resisting redundancies or wantsupport for your actions, you can simplytext - REDUNDANCY to 021 186 1450and we will ring you back.

I'm not opposed to house owners wanting to sell their homes, but I do oppose any sale of state owned houses, being sold against the ...

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